At just under 2,3kg, Samsung’s Series 7 Chronos is a hefty machine, inside and out, but one that’s sure to turn heads. But with an equally hefty price, it will be interesting to see how well it competes with some of the slimmer competitors on the market, including Samsung’s own ultraportable Series 9 range.
In SA, the Series 7 carries a sizeable recommended price of R14 300 — and that’s without add-ons like a large solid-state drive (SSD), which is the sort of thing a number of consumers looking to spend that sort of money will be expecting.
That’s not to say it’s not a substantial machine. Packing a Core i7 2,2GHz processor, 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive, along with an enormous multi-touch trackpad, backlit full keyboard with numeric pad and a beautiful 15,6-inch display, the Series 7 Chronos looks every bit the workhorse Samsung is punting it as. The combination of a potent processor and a ton of RAM means the Chronos should last a number of seasons before it starts to look outdated.
The model we reviewed included a 500GB hard drive and came with 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. The Chronos includes an 8GB SSD for performing the machine’s key functions, which accounts for the snappy start-up and wake-up times of the device.
Though the lack of a large SSD is a little disheartening, those opting for an external unit will be well served by the dual USB 3.0 ports on the left-hand side of the laptop.
The combination of an SSD and USB 3.0 is a potent one, and while it won’t make for the high-speed boot-up and restore times we see on those using SSDs for their system drives, those looking to edit video or large image files would do well to consider the combination.
You’ll also find an HDMI out, dual-purpose 3,5mm audio in/out jack, an Ethernet port and a proprietary video-out connection that resembles micro USB. Thankfully, Samsung has included an adaptor that supports VGA for this video-out port.
An onboard AMD Radeon 6750 graphics card further caters for video and gaming applications, and the 16:9 aspect ratio — with 1 600×900-pixel resolution – makes the screen ideally suited to mobile HD movie-watching.
On the right of the device is a lone USB 2.0 port and an optical DVD drive — a curious anachronism in an age where people almost never use them anymore. Also, with a screen so well suited to HD content, we’d have preferred a Blu-ray drive.
The front of the device includes an SD card slot that takes the entire card and allows it to click into the laptop’s body making it possible to leave a card in place — a design decision other manufacturers would do well to emulate.
Battery life peaks at around four hours for video playback, and closer to six in normal use. Considering the size of the screen, that’s pretty respectable. Unfortunately, power users won’t be able to carry a second battery as the unit is sealed.
The trackpad’s size is glorious, as is its multi-touch support that makes it possible to perform functions such as showing the desktop by swiping up with all four fingers. Less glorious are the integrated — and invisible — left and right buttons at the bottom of the trackpad. These are all too easy to press by mistake and one can’t help thinking that users would be better served by simply offering a two-finger tap as a right-click alternative, particularly as the whole trackpad is clickable and tappable.
The keyboard, meanwhile, is an absolute delight, offering backlit and standalone keys — the brightness of which can be varied using the row of function keys at the top of the keyboard. Spreadsheet addicts and other number crunchers will be well served by the numeric keypad, and the entire keyboard is quiet in use. No clickety-clack to infuriate your colleague in the next cubicle.
The only gripe about the keyboard is that because of the numeric pad, the main Qwerty component of the keyboard is off-centre, as is the trackpad. Although one acclimatises to this pretty quickly, it’s a little unnerving having everything offset.
For those who spend the bulk of their time dealing with numbers, the Chronos is ideal, but wordsmiths might find the keyboard arrangement uncomfortable for extended use. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media
